The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-06-10
AN A~NTISEPTIC SWEET.
Something About S~aeciarine, Its Virtue
and its Probable Future.

After giving the story Of the discovery
of saccharine by a German chemist (Fahl-
berg) at the John Hopkins University in
Baltimore, Md, it is said that viii G it took
a long time and much hard study to LEAN
the philosophy of it's production, it has
taken eight years to reduce the manufacture
Of it to a commercial basis. 1t was for
merly supposed that the physical quality of
sweetness was typified by the carbo-hy-
drates: that is, the sugar and those starches
which, by chemical treatment, are brought
into the group. But Fahlberg's discovery
does away with this old standard practic-
ally and scientifically. 1t is $50 times
sweeter than the best cane sugar, equal TO
unity. What is more extraordinary, it
differs wholly in principle from the Carlo
hydrate group-that is, from all other
known sugars--in not being susceptible to
fermentation. Every housewife knows
how preserved fruit mildews, how jam
molds and how yeast ferments and spoils.
All these operations are the result of the
action Of organisms feeding on the sugar,
heretofore an inseparable feature of all
sw%eetening processes. But you can not
produce lamentations in saccbarine. To
the contrary, it is powerfully preservatiye
"a quality it possesses in common with
all the c~oal-tar products. OF this the cor
respondent a y he had some curious il
Illustrations from the samples Mr.. Salamon
had brought with him from Magdeburg.
There were Strawberries, for instance, put
up over a year ago, which had never been
cooked and which preserved absolutely
their flavor OF the garden. The jam had
been boiled, but with the mountaineering
saccharine there was no boiling away, 40
need of Swimming, with which ordinary
sugar involves a loss of ten per cent. 1t is
not necessary TO speak Of other samples.
Every one can see what the effect must be,
i'll all these lines OF production, of substitu-
ting for ordinary sugars a ~sweetening
power which can not feruient, and which is
strongly preservatiye. Another novel and
interesting quality of this new product is
that it is strictly a~nti-diabetic. 1t passes
through the system absolutely untouched.
German physicians are making much OF
this phase of the discovery and there has
already been established an independent
factory for the manufacture of anti-diabetic
biscuits for the use of the large class of
patients to whom all sweetening has here
tofore been forbidden. An immense factory,
with The best machinery and appliances,
was started in Ma~gdeburg, Germany, in
February, employing between two hundred
and three hundred workmen, to manufac-
turo saccharine, with a capital of 5000, 600.
The correspondent says that ''of course the
principal idea of the introduction of
saccharine, so far as Americas sugar trade
goes, is, that by combinations with glucose,
a sugar can be made which will drive cane
sample of sugar, composed of two
parts of saccharine and one thousand
parts glucose, which seemed to sight and
taste to be good enough sugar? The cor
respondent goes on to speculate upon the
new industry and its effects as follows;
sIf a combination with saccharine can
make a harmless, n-fermenting, nom
crystalizing sugar out of glucose, at cost
enabling it to compete with, not to say
drive out, cane sugar, then clearly a ire
mendous and commercial and sectional re-
volution will be at hand. Buffalo, Peoria
and other centers CT the glucose industry
will have the Louisiana and West Indian
trade and the great refining works of New
York and California at their mercy. This
seems among the possibilities, to state the
case mildly, and it is surely worth thinking
about" The coal tar to be used in the
Magdeburg factory comes from England,
which country produces many thousands of
tons of this produc. of gas making.-Light,
Heat and Poaoer.